16th December, 1925 – Unified States – Research Group 51 Facility

As he walked out of the car that had brought him and his bodyguards here, the President of the Unified States thought back on recent events.

Since the defeat suffered by the Royal Navy, Prime Minister Churbull had been playing for time. His diplomats had started meeting with the Empire's, while others made entreaties to the other powers, looking for allies. Meanwhile, Albion's fleet had been gathered around the islands, and troop transports had delivered fresh divisions to the Kingdom's mainland.

The President suspected that the Bulldog, as the Prime Minister was called by friend and foe alike, was making a play where either something would come up and turn the tide of the war, or, if nothing happened, all the blame for throwing the Allied Kingdom into the war could be put on his shoulders, and his successor would be in a better position, both at home and when dealing with the Empire at the negotiation table. If that were the case, then the man had to be admired for his patriotism, if nothing else.

Then again, the President might be wrong, and Churbull was just too stubborn to quit or admit that he'd made a mistake. It wasn't as if he knew the man personally. Maybe he saw the generosity of the terms offered by the Empire as a starting point for negotiations as an insult to his country's honor, for all the President knew.

In truth, that generosity was baffling the experts on this side of the ocean. It was one thing for a country to be gracious in victory, although the President was realist enough to know it was far, far rarer than what was implied in the schools' textbooks. But there was a reason why most nations had regarded the Empire as a military with a state attached to it rather than the reverse, even before the Great War had started.

There was something at work within the Empire, keeping it from becoming greedy, ensuring that the propaganda fed to its population walked the thin line between maintaining popular support and avoiding breeding revanchism. The best guess of the political analysts working for the President was that the Empire had lucked out and its current Kaiser was both reasonable and clever enough to look to the long-term interests of his country. It was, the President knew, one of the arguments used by the proponents of monarchy : the fact that a sovereign could act regardless of the ebb and flow of politics, their eyes fixed on the horizon. Of course, that was nonsense : far more frequently, the monarch was an entitled fool surrounded by yes-men and bootlickers. But unless there was an entire faction at the Imperial Court working in the shadows, the Kaiser's personal involvement was the most likely option.

Considering what the Wunderwaffen could do if the Empire abandoned all restraint, the President gave prayers of thanks to the Lord that was the case. He would take the increased headaches of having to deal with a complicated political situation over waking up one day to learn that Londinium or Parisee had been razed to the ground as an example to keep the rest of Europa in line.

At the moment, the President had no intention of dragging the Unified States into the Great War, despite the efforts of the Allied Kingdom's diplomats. However, he wasn't blind to the threat the Wunderwaffen posed to his country, should whoever was keeping the Empire's lust for conquest under check change their mind or lose their influence – or, hell, just die of old age eventually. Which was why he was here, in the middle of nowhere, to check in on the progress of the Unified States' counter-measures.

"I have to ask," he asked the man next to him as they walked, "why '51' ? I think I would know if we had fifty other research groups."

"I have absolutely no idea," Nicol Teslus replied cheerfully. "You would have to ask the bureaucrats who named the place."

The site was composed of several buildings surrounded by a fence with multiple watchtowers, each with a gun's nest at the top. The President of the Unified States was ushered by a very enthusiastic Teslus into one of them, where the demonstration would take place.

"We have made great progress since the work started," said the inventor. "I think you'll be impressed with the results."

"I certainly hope so," replied the President. God knew he could do with some good news at the moment.

"Most of our work has been based around building devices to enhance soldiers with some magical potential, but not enough to qualify as aerial mages. Like these !" Teslus said proudly, gesturing to a table on which laid several helmets with thick, green lenses. "These are nightvision googles. They require only the slightest use of mana to function, and give their wearer the same kind of sight in low-light conditions animals like cats enjoy. The resulting view is quite monochrome, but it is a massive advantage in night battles."

The President was no expert in military matters (that was why he had his advisors), but he had spent some time in the Army in his youth, and was intelligent enough to realize the implications. Night battles were rare in the modern era, because carrying around a light source made you an obvious target and you needed to be able to see for obvious reasons. Soldiers with these would be all but unstoppable in the darkness … at least against other conventional troops. Given that the Imperial supersoldiers had been deployed at night on the Rhine Front, these were more of an equalizer, but a welcome one to be sure.

"That sounds very useful," he said out loud.

"So I've been assured by our military consultants," said Teslus, gesturing at the handful of officers standing nearby, all of whom had long-suffering expressions on their faces that told the President that, regardless of his genius, Teslus had been speaking the truth when he'd claimed to be difficult to work with. "We have also built improved magical detection arrays, with triple the range of the model currently used by the army, and at least twice the precision. And of course, our latest computation orb model has just finished the last round of testing and is ready to start production for the aerial mages of our country."

"Speaking of aerial mages," asked the President. "Have you made any progress in figuring the Imperial stealth mages out ?"

"Unfortunately, no," replied Teslus, looking genuinely disappointed. "Our best guess is that the Imperials have figured out a way to optimize spell casting to the point there are no mana emission, but if so, the technology to do so ourselves is far beyond us at the moment." He pointed back to the nightvision helmets : "we have incorporated a new heat detection system in the helmet, but any mage worth his salt can trick that if they know it's in play. And with how little information we have on the Imperial stealth mages, there is no way of knowing if this would work on them at all."

"These are all very promising designs," he said, because it was true. Before the Great War, any one of these would have been game changers in their own right. "But I can't help but notice that you haven't shown me anything that could match the Wunderwaffen."

Teslus smiled again. "Ah, that's because I wanted to start with the smaller stuff, Mister President ! Follow me, please. Let me show you the future, not just of warfare, but of Humanity !"

The 'future of Humanity' was spread on an entire table, and looked like a cube of metal with a lever on one end and a pair of cables on the other, running through several light bulbs. All in all, it wasn't very impressive. Teslus walked toward the device, and after seemingly taking a few seconds to collect himself, pulled the lever down. Immediately, the blocky machine started to purr, and the row of lightbulbs lit up.

The President blinked. "You've invented an electrical generator ?"

"In a fashion, I suppose. But the thing is, Mister President," said Teslus with a wry smile, "there is no fuel within that device. No coal, no oil, nothing. I jump-started it with a bolt of mana, and now it is producing an electric current."

"That … that's impossible," managed to say the President as the implication of what Teslus was saying dawned on him. "Perpetual motion is a hoax."

"Please," snorted Teslus. "This isn't 'perpetual motion'. We can only get the engine to keep running for a few hours before it starts overheating, and it needs maintenance between activation, along with replacement parts once they burn out or are worn down. Even so, this power source made the rest of our armaments much more practical. We call it the Teslus Engine, or T-Engine in short. This one was the first proof of concept I built in order to convince my dear colleagues it was possible."

"How ?" asked the President.

"Well -"

"If you'll excuse me, sir ?" cut in a nearby technician. After a moment, Teslus sighed and gestured for him to go on. "Mister Teslus has tried to explain how the T-Engine works to some of the scientists assigned to the Research Group. Most of them didn't understand his explanation at all, and a few ended up having a mental breakdown and needing to be sent off to rest and hopefully recover."

The President blinked, then turned toward Teslus.

"That is correct," said the genius inventor. "The theory behind how it works is … complex, to say the least. Even I get severe headaches when I work on it, and I came up with the bloody thing in the first place. I assure you that it does make sense, it's just … counter-intuitive to the way we perceive the universe with our limited senses. Most of the pieces can be built by our engineers without problems. But a handful of components need to be handcrafted by myself, and I need to perform the final assembly as well. Which means that at the moment, if I die, then the entire technology will be lost – and however flattering that might be for my ego, I suspect that isn't convenient for the rest of the country."

"Even so, this is … beyond revolutionary," whispered the President. "I struggle to imagine how such a technology might change society."

"I know," nodded Teslus, looking serious for the first time since the President had arrived at the facility. "It could serve so many uses beyond warfare. We're looking for people with the right mindset to absorb such difficult knowledge, but haven't had any luck so far."

The President took a deep breath. "Alright. Much as I would like to have this T-Engine used solely for peaceful purposes, I still need to see what you did with it."

"Of course. Here !" Like a performer on a stage, Teslus pulled a curtain off a trio of what looked like suits of medieval armor, except much heavier and modern. Huge rifles, which looked more like smaller artillery pieces than handheld weapons, laid on a huge rack next to them.

"These are mechanized power armors," explained Teslus. "Each of them has a small T-Engine in the back to provide power for motion, as they are far too heavy for even the strongest man to move otherwise. Once strapped inside, the pilot activates the T-Engine, giving them around six hours of safe use before the engine needs to be shut down. During that time, they can move at speeds of up to thirty kilometers an hour, with short bursts of up to sixty, can lift a car with ease, and most importantly, can generate a magical shield not inferior to those of a fully-fledged aerial mage. With what we know of the Imperial Devils, I believe these armored suits would be more than a match for them."

In the half-hour that followed, the test pilots of the armored suits – each of whom a soldier who had tested positive for magical potential, but too low to qualify for aerial mage – performed a very impressive demonstration of the suits' capabilities, proving Teslus' claims to be true. One of them even stood in place while an aerial mage fired attack spells at him, his energy shield holding for several shots before finally collapsing with a clap of thunder – and even then, it popped back up after a few moments.

"That's incredible," said the President once the demonstration was over and he'd had a chance to personally congratulate the pilots on their work.

"I knew you would like them," smiled Teslus. "Of course, with the need for me to personally build each T-Engine, ramping up production is difficult. It takes me about a hundred hours of work to get one engine complete, and I think I've streamlined the process as much as I can. But that's not the biggest surprise we've in store for you."

They went outside of the building and into an open field. There laid a huge contraption of metal and wires that the President couldn't begin to identify, except that the overall shape vaguely reminded him of a big, ten-meters long gun. The impression was helped by the presence of a seat at one end in which a man covered in protective gear was seated, similar to an artillery piece – except this one was horizontal.

"It has an official and complicated name," Teslus said, "but I prefer to call it the death ray. "It incorporates elements of computation orbs, but only for one, singular spell. There are two separate T-Engines inside, much larger ones than those in the armored suits, and you need to be a mage to fire it as well – and a true mage, too. But the results, well, you'll see for yourself."

He was brought to a small concrete shelter, and given a pair of thick tinted googles as well as a pair of ear protectors. The other people in the bunker wore the same, and so did the gunner sitting behind the apparatus. An old and burned-out tank had been dragged a hundred meters or so in front of it.

Teslus counted down from ten, and when he hit zero, everything was light, even with the googles, and the President felt as if his very bones were going to vibrate out of his skin. When he finally blinked his vision clear, there was nothing but a deep crater were the tank had been.

"Impressive, isn't it ?" asked Teslus once they had all removed their ear-protecting gear. "We are working on improving its design to make it more compact. With what happened to the Mighty Hood, I thought the Navy would like something that could kill that 'Kraken' creature which sank the Albish squadron a few weeks back. We're also working on a much smaller version, without the T-Engines inside, that could be fitted on the armored suits and use their own power source instead."

"That would certainly be easier to use," said the President. "I didn't see clearly, but this thing fires in a straight line, yes ?"

"Completely straight, yes," confirmed Teslus.

"So it cannot be used for artillery. But I'm guessing you didn't build that just as another proof of concept ?"

"Of course not ! Come, and I'll show you the last part of your visit."

They walked to a building the President was certain had been used as a hangar before – but as its gates rolled open, he saw that it wasn't planes sheltering from the elements inside. Instead, within that hangar was a giant of metal, over twenty meters tall and just under half as large. Dozens of engineers were working on various sections of it, doing God alone knew what. Some of its body was covered in thick metal plating, but the rest was still exposed wiring and gears. Yet even in this incomplete, completely immobile state, the construct radiated a sense of power and threat.

"We call it the Titan," said Teslus proudly. "With the largest T-Engine I've ever built installed within its chest, its output far outstripping the others. It's far from finished, of course. I know it may look … somewhat absurd, but I had what I felt were good reasons to insist we test its potential. Even now, over a year later, we don't know much about what happened to the Dacian Army."

That was true, the President knew. The Dacian survivors all suffered great trauma, and those who managed to recover refuse to speak about it : they all appear to have repressed their memories of the battle, and react violently to attempts to coax information out of them.

"However, based on the initial interviews we were given by our Albish friends, it seems the first Wunderwaffe ever deployed by the Empire took the form of some kind of enormous monsters, not that different from the Kraken that sunk the Royal Navy squadron. The Imperials haven't used that particular superweapon since then, but I still felt we should be prepared for it. And what better way to fight giant monsters than by building our own ?"

He had to admit that it made a twisted kind of sense. Still …

"Is the humanoid form really necessary, though ?" asked the President. "I can understand its purpose with the armored suits, since they're for infantry, but I would think using it for something that size presents all sorts of engineering challenges." There was a reason cars used wheels and tanks rolled around on tracks while walking automatons were restricted to children's toys, after all.

"Oh, absolutely," agreed Teslus. "We tested a tank-shaped frame first, which was much easier to build. But it turns out the piloting system is much more intuitive and responsive if the construct's design mirrors that of the human form. I believe that is because the pilots are, in the end, humans, and the human mind is naturally more suited to controlling a human-shaped body. If the T-Engine was a mere power source, that wouldn't be an issue – we could just slap one in the place of a tank engine and be done with it – but … Ah, I probably should shut up." The inventor looked slightly embarrassed. "I would rather avoid driving you crazy as well, Mister President. Let's just say there are certain design constraints involved in building an arcane warmachine powered by a T-Engine."

"I would much rather avoid that as well," said the President drily. "Anything else ?"

"We're thinking of mounting the death-ray on the Titan chassis, to serve as a kind of arm cannon once we figure out the remaining engineering problems that presents," replied Teslus. "It'll make bringing its firepower to bear much easier, and as I said, even Division Y's monsters will struggle when faced with its power. I'm also thinking of installing anti-air batteries on its shoulders, to make life harder for aerial mages targeting the Titan. They'd need to have a crew, of course, but I think there's more than enough place."

For a moment, the President imagined the future of warfare : armies of metal giants striding the earth as they marched to war, each carrying weapons such as this. A cold shiver ran down his spine as he visualized the utter desolation they would leave in their wake. A new kind of war, more total in its destruction than even the records of the Rhine he had witnessed, as man-made gods of steel and magic clashed with the Elder Magic of the Empire, with hapless soldiers caught in the middle.

Shivering, he briefly felt the impulse to shut down the entire thing, to bury all this terrible knowledge where it couldn't hurt anyone. But he had sworn an oath to God that he'd keep his country safe, and this was exactly what he needed for that.

"Well done, Mister Teslus," he finally said. "You and your colleagues have greatly exceeded my expectations."

They were far from Division Y's level yet, and even getting this far had cost a considerable amount of money. But at least they were in the race now, instead of watching from the sidelines or not even knowing they should be running. Besides, the Imperials had to have been working on their Wunderwaffen for decades before the Great War had started. Considering Teslus and the rest had been working for less than six months, what they had achieved was already amazing.

"I will increase your funding as much as I can," he continued. "I will also set people to work on discreetly finding candidates to learn about the T-Engine. I will discuss matters with rest of High Command, but for now, I'd like you to focus on getting the Titan ready for combat, and as many armored suits and their pilots as you can. As for the rest, we'll entrust mass-production to others now that you've completed the designs."

Scaling up production would take time, even if they found people capable of learning how to build more T-Engines. It would be months, if not years before the Unified States was ready to field the creations of Research Group 51 in significant numbers.

The President sighed. The Allied Kingdom was on its own, then, because he refused to send millions of his citizens to die pointlessly against the Empire's Wunderwaffen. But at the very least, he now had the prospect of a counter to Division Y's superweapons, which would prevent total Imperial military domination.

Of course, he couldn't exactly say that to the Albish. Keeping Research Group 51's work secret was of paramount importance. But if he was to look like he'd abandoned their cousins in their time of need in the eyes of History, well, nobody with any sense had ever said the job of President of the Unified States was easy.

"We got a letter today from Division Y at the office.

At first, we were ecstatic. I don't think it controversial to say that everyone working in R&D for the Imperial Army dreams of learning more about the makers of the Wunderwaffen. It's also common knowledge that since the Dacian invasion, Division Y has always worked alongside other branches of the Imperial Army. Given that we've been working on submarine torpedoes and other technologies for the use of the Navy, and that we'd all heard about the destruction wrought upon the Mighty Hood and her squadron, we thought we were going to be roped in to help scale up whatever it was that led to this glorious victory.

That … wasn't the case.

Apparently, the mysterious Director of Division Y (for security reasons, the letter didn't include their name, but there is no doubt of its authenticity) was recently aboard one of the Empire's submarines. It probably was during the operation that sunk the Hood, and during that time, they spoke with the sailors crewing the sub. They learned about the … difficulties the Empire's submarines have encountered in making use of the armaments developed by our department since the start of the war.

The letter's contents were as unfailingly polite as they were merciless in their assessment of our work. Bluntly put, they tore apart our entire approach to our work, accusing us of pursuing higher specs at the expense of making sure the weapons could actually be used. They wrote that we, removed from the field of battle as we are, have succumbed to tunnel vision.

Coming from anyone else, we would have dismissed it, but it's Division Y. Since none of us want to have possibly the most powerful person in the entire Imperial Army angry at us, we've decided to follow their 'respectful suggestions'. It will take some time to adjust, but we've already started to work on implementing new testing procedures that should recreate the actual use conditions more faithfully.

… We're also going to have to ask the Navy to send people to help make sure we don't miss something again. I can already imagine how smug they will be, but, well, I suppose we deserve it."

Excerpt from the journal of a researcher at the Imperial Navy's R&D Department, December 16th, 1925.

December 18th, 1925 – Castle Schwartzstein

I breathed a sigh of relief as I landed after spending a couple of hours training with the Nazzadi in the airspace above Castle Schwartzstein. Zerayah and her team were learning fast : even with the advantage given by my walking stick's superior capabilities, it was all I could do to keep up with the four of them when we trained.

"Well done," I congratulated them as we stretched after the intense exercise we had put ourselves through. "You keep getting better."

"We still cannot match you," said Zerayah. We were speaking Imperial, of course : while a handful of our linguistic team had become semi-passable in the Nazzadi tongue, I wasn't one of them, and it was better for them to get used to the language of their adoptive country in any case.

"I have been doing this for years," I told her. With how time had been messed up on Nazza-Duhni, teaching them about how our calendar worked had been an interesting experience, but Zerayah had grasped it quickly. "If you could get to my level so fast, it would reflect poorly on me."

They didn't look too disappointed, but then they'd seen me fight Akhar-Zegog, so they hadn't been expecting to defeat me. I had told them I'd only been able to do it thanks to the Kosmosblut; well, not in so many words, I couldn't exactly reveal military secrets like that, but I'd made sure the Nazzadi knew that power wasn't something I could use at all time.

We changed out of our practice gear and back into our proper uniforms, despite the Nazzadi now having proper civilian clothes. The paperwork to get Imperial citizenships for the Nazzadi refugees had gone through, just like General Zettour had promised. Imperial bureaucracy being what it was, it would still take some time before we received the passports and other documents that would hopefully allow them to become part of Imperial society one day. At least now that they had an official existence I could actually pay them, although explaining the concept of money to post-apocalyptic tribals had been an interesting challenge that had taken me back to Economics 101.

After a few more minutes spent discussing the details of our aerial bout, I left them to return to my office. As I walked through the corridors of Castle Schwartzstein, one hand on my walking stick and one eye out for threat (despite all my efforts to promote a safe working environment, you never knew when one of the occultists would mess up and call forth some unspeakable horror from the beyond), my mind turned onto greater matters.

In the wake of Operation Enigma (a name chosen by General Zettour, which hadn't exactly filled me with confidence when I'd first heard it), we had intensified operational security as much as we reasonably could, following Elya's suggestions. At this point, one of the only ways we could think of for the Allied Kingdom to turn things around would be to somehow figure out our location and attack us directly. Given the location of Division Y's headquarters within Imperial territory, I couldn't see how the John Bulls might be able to bring the army they'd need to defeat the little menagerie of nightmares that inhabited Castle Schwartzstein, but sabotage or theft were still possibilities.

After all, a desperate enemy was at its most dangerous, and the pro-war faction of the Allied Kingdom certainly was desperate. According to Zettour's latest message, it wouldn't be long now before Albion folded. Protests against both their joining and conduct of the war were getting more and more frequent, despite the best efforts of the Allied Kingdom's propaganda machine. The King of Kemet had also started making noise, and there was word that several other Albish holdings were starting to get ideas too, now that it seemed the star of their colonial overlord was fading.

Partisan activity in Legadonia was all but gone. The manner in which they had conducted their first wave of attacks months ago had ensured that only the most idiotically fanatical 'patriots' would join up, and such individuals weren't exactly subtle. There'd never been any resistance to Imperial occupation in Dacia to speak of : the sheer totality of their army's defeat had crushed any notion of fighting back. As for Francois, the Republic's mainland was quiet, with the Albish too afraid of our stealth mages to risk crossing the Dodobird Strait. The military governors of their colonies had also calmed down after our little demonstration in Kemet : none of them wanted General Romel to pay them a visit. Even without Division Y's support, the man had more than enough conventional forces at his disposal to teach a lesson to any blue-blood with thoughts of setting himself up as king.

The only danger left was the Eikons. By now, Imperial Intelligence was almost certain De Lugo and Beauvais had taken refuge somewhere in Ildoa, by process of elimination if nothing else. However, the Kingdom of Ildoa had stayed neutral throughout the Great War, which I could admit I was envious of. At this point, there was no logical reason for them to join in, even if they had managed to get the knowledge to create Eikons of their own.

Unfortunately, Eikons weren't logical beings but pawns of Being X. Given that the center of this world's most powerful religion was located within Ildoa as well, the danger was obvious. And while nobody at Central Headquarters was happy about the prospect of another front opening, they had taken my warnings about König's report seriously and had quietly increased our defenses in the south. The fact that there was a huge chain of mountains serving as a natural border between us and Ildoa meant that any conventional attack would turn into a grinding slaughter : I vaguely remembered that, during the First World War in my old world, the Alps had been the site of some truly gruelling attrition. Combine that with the winter covering the mountains with snow, and no army would try to go on the offensive.

Of course, the Eikons changed things, as they cared nothing for such paltry things as weather conditions. So we had taken precautions against their possible deployment. New M-912s had been built and sent to the military bases in the mountains, to be kept hidden until and unless Eikons were sighted. The M-912s hadn't been used against human enemies yet, and while such wasn't banned by international treaty I was fairly certain it ought to be. The aerial mages of the Southern Army had also been briefed on the Eikons' capabilities (although to be fair, so had the mages of every other Army, because the Reich was nothing if not thorough), and told not to engage unless they had a massive numerical advantage. At the moment, our hopes were that, if and when Ildoa declared war on us, the Southern Army would hold long enough for reinforcements to arrive, including those from Division Y.

On that end, we were as ready as we could be. The Untoten we had raised after the Battle of the Rhine had finished their training and were ready for deployment. Our alchemists had also produced more than enough Endlose Nacht for each instance of Projekt U, although we hadn't tested what the effect of a second dose would be. Asking the Denkmaschine for its best guess had been inconclusive, but it was clear it wouldn't be pleasant. Worst-case scenario, I still had a dose of Kosmosblut on my person : given that I had torn through the first Eikons in Arene unarmed during my first use of the serum, part of me was looking forward to letting loose with my walking stick back in its original shape.

There had been a proposal to send Wunderwaffen along with more troops to the border to stand guard, but it had been rejected. There was a chance that massing troops at the border would push the Kingdom of Ildoa to declare war, quite understandably seeing such a build-up as a prelude to us invading them.

All in all, things were going great, which meant I was left waiting for the other shoe to drop.

December 20th, 1925 – The Holy See

They were running out of time.

The flow of new candidates for the Holy Knights had all but dried up with the abandon of their operations in the Republic and the Empire's presence on the Southern Continent, but every new blessed warrior increased their chances of victory, and the regular troops could have used more training as well. Ildoa had spent too long in indolence, relying on diplomacy rather than force of arms to keep it safe. In another, better world, that attitude might have served it well, but with the forces of Hell having subverted its northern neighbour, it was suicidal. Worse, it was heresy.

One by one, the members of Ildoan High Command had been brought into the fold. Starting with General Gassman, they had been illuminated as to the true nature of the struggle ravaging Europa, and had sworn themselves to the cause. In time, De Lugo knew with utter certainty, the entire Ildoan army could have been reforged into one shining blade of faith, invincible and unbreakable. Not even all the Wunderwaffen of the Empire would have stood a chance against them then.

But time was running out. It was clear that the Allied Kingdom, for all its erstwhile bravado, would surrender to the Empire's demands soon. Without anyone openly defying the Empire, Dacia, Francois and Legadonia would fall under its shadow. Hidden behind pretty words and treaties, the poison of infernal corruption would spread, and all of Europa would be damned. They had to act now, and show the faithful that with the light of the Lord at their side, the darkness that consumed the Empire could be fought. Not just endured as the Albish had with the ancient secrets they had exhumed and repurposed to protect their precious capital, but fought, and eventually defeated.

De Lugo was under no illusion that the path ahead would be easy. The blessing of the Lord only gave His servants a fighting chance : it was up to them to prove worthy of it through victory.

Since the start of the Great War, Ildoa had at least kept troops on its northern border. In the last few days, as the Congregation strengthened its control over the Kingdom, more divisions had been sent there in preparation. Fifty divisions in total, over half a million men, now stood ready, although only a tiny handful among them knew what was about to unfold.

It was a mighty force, even by the standards of this terrible war. With the strength of the Holy Knights added to it, no mortal foe could stand in their way. Yet De Lugo knew in his heart of hearts that, for all its righteous strength, this glorious host they had assembled would not be enough. To defeat the Devil's apostle, they'd need a weapon to match the spear of the Archangel whose name the Congregation bore, the very weapon which had struck down the Father of Lies and cast him into Hell at the dawn of time.

By the grace of the Lord, they had such a weapon : the Trinity's Tear, the world's first and only tri-core computation orb. Now all they needed was someone to wield it, which had proven harder to find than expected.

In the two months since Doctor Schugel had completed the holy relic, the Holy Knights had poured all of their strength into the Trinity's Tear. The artefact was near-bursting with collected power, holding together only thanks to the miracle that had gone in its construction. The last time De Lugo had laid eyes upon it, he had nearly been blinded by its radiance. Without the protections woven into the walls of the Congregation's headquarters, it would have tripped magical sensors all across the peninsula. Not even the Holy Knights enhanced by Doctor Schugel's ministrations could wield its awesome power : a true champion of God was required to make use of it, to contain its might and wield it in service of the Lord.

They had searched for a suitable candidate, and finally, the hand of the Lord had guided them. Now, on this holy day, Archbishop Beauvais was performing the new rite he'd received from the Heavens : one that would not elevate twelve of the Lord's chosen, but instead reforge a single soul into the instrument of His will on Earth. Once the Archbishop was done, Doctor Schugel would immediately start working to make the final adjustments, using the knowledge he had gained from the Lord and the experience from practicing on the Holy Knights.

The sacrament was taking place in the holiest of holies, reserved for their use on this day by the command of His Holiness himself. De Lugo, still just a mortal man despite all that had happened, stood at the gates, looking at the holy city around him and taking in its beauty one more time. He had stood there for several hours now, but the fire of faith was sustaining him. Holy Knights in their human guise stood guard, ensuring nobody strayed too close and heard the chanted prayers and unearthly noises.

Finally, the great doors opened, and Doctor Schugel emerged. He looked both exhausted and exalted, sweat running down his brow while his eyes shone with fading golden light.

"Well ?" asked De Lugo.

"It is done," answered the one Imperial who had seen the truth as his nation sank into ruin. "The Saint is ready."

"Then it is time for the Crusade to begin."

December 22nd, 1925 – Imperial Capital Berun – Central Headquarters of the Imperial Army

Slowly, Brigadier General Zettour lowered the decoded letter he'd just received from the Southern Army Headquarters.

It was taking all of his self-control not to let his expression change in front of the aide who had delivered the message and the rest of his people in the office where he had been working on contingency plans for the Allied Kingdom. He was a staff officer of the Reich, and one of the men who had led the Empire to victory after victory. It didn't matter that those victories had been built upon the work of a young girl who made the impossible look easy : it was his duty to keep up appearances, for the sake of morale.

He kept staring at the words on the page, but they stubbornly refused to change.

… the Holy See has taken control of the Kingdom of Ildoa, and declared a Holy Crusade against the Empire …

… dozens of Eikons have been sighted accompanying the Ildoan Army, and the mana detectors indicate many more are present …

… reports from the scouts who managed to escape the Eikons indicate that they have blasted a straight path right through the mountains with some kind of magical superweapon of their own …

Zettour took a deep breath, and steadily ignored the headache that was already forming in his skull.

"Call General Rudersdorf, please," he said calmly. "And bring an aerial mage cleared for messenger duty as well."

AN : How is that for escalation ?

Yes, after asking on SB how the mountains between Italy and Germany would influence the war and receiving many lengthy and well thought out responses, I decided to instead have the Congregation use magic to remove the mountains that stood in their way. I was inspired by A Young Woman's Political Record, where it is mentioned that Tanya's final battle against Mary Sue 'redrew a few obscure Alpine maps'. If you are worried about the Congregation having access to that kind of firepower, try to imagine how Tanya feels right now. Of course, more details about just what happened will be provided in the next chapter, but I wanted to give you a taste of the Empire's own shock at this happening.

For the Unified States, the T-Engine is basically a steampunk version of CthuluTech D-Engine, which is a device allowing for unlimited free energy, the invention of which drove the initial inventor mad and on which research continues to drive scientists insane regularly in the setting. And yes, this basically allows you to bully the laws of thermodynamics and take their lunch money, but I was looking for a power source that could justify Teslus' magitek and when I remembered this concept, it all just clicked. It even fits into the cosmology I've constructed for this fic, and I feel the fact only Teslus can build them keeps it from being too much of a gamechanger. Also, I stole the idea that a humanoid form makes piloting mechs easier from the YS fanfic 'Tanya the Fuehrer', available on AO3.

I toyed with the idea of adding a skyship for the sheer coolness factor, but I couldn't come up with a justification for it being ready in so short a time (the Titan mech was already pushing it, even if it's far from complete). Maybe it's being worked on somewhere else : what do you think ? Are you interested in seeing that added to the story ?

As always, I look forward to your thoughts on this chapter and suggestions. Next up will probably be the second chapter of Ciaphas Cain : Warmaster of Chaos, which had a much more enthusiastic reception than I had anticipated.

Zahariel out.